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SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – A recent Spanish-language billboard advertising Tecate beer in San Francisco’s Mission District appears to endorse public urination.

The advertisement reads simply “Baño” – Spanish for bathroom – over a photo of a tree. With the tag line “It’s easy to be a man with character” which is also written in Spanish. News of the posting was first reported on blog sites The Tens and SFist.

San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors banned public urination in 2002. Public urination complaints are still common in in the city, particularly in neighborhoods known for their nightlife.

In response to the SFist posting, a commenter claiming to be Tecate VP of Marketing Felix Palau offered the following statement explaining that the advertisement was never intended for production and display:

We have an internal process whereby every ad is reviewed for compliance with our local code for responsible commercial communication. As a part of that process, this ad concept was rejected by our US team but unfortunately, an error was made and the ad was mistakenly released and posted. We sincerely thank consumers for bringing this to our attention and have immediately removed the ad. We regret the error and are taking a look at our internal controls to ensure this does not happen again.

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